"The Keys to the House" (aka, "Les Clefs de la Maison" and "Le
Chiavi di Casa")

The film that carved a niche out for this one is "Rain Man." Though it's not,
by any means, an imitation, it is about a young person with a handicap and a
caretaker. Here, it's 14-year old, mentally impaired Paolo (Andrea Rossi) and
the father who abandoned him years before.

Gianni (Kim Rossi Stuart-no relation), wants back into his handicapped son's
life years after he turned away from him because of birth defects that he
wasn't prepared to cope with. He faces the scary proposition of introducing
himself to the boy and turning his biological role into an actual one. His
trepidation derives from the fact that communication with Paolo is
unpredictable and he doesn't know how the boy will receive or relate to him.

Gianni takes it slow as Paolo's reactions are friendly and accepting... up to
a point. Gianni is reeady for the challenge, expressing love and devotion at
every turn. He has already mentally re-adopted the boy and soon becomes a
father in the fullest sense of the term, dutiful, selfless, protective. For
Paolo, however, the trail to trust is strewn with doubt and continuous
testing.

Taking Paolo to a Berlin hospital for diagnostic panels he's never had,
Gianni meets a slightly older woman, Nicole (Charlotte Rampling) whose life
is similarly a matter of attending to the special needs of a mentally
handicapped offspring. She's a mirror into the future for Gianni, one which
he doesn't shrink from. Once she puts Gianni and Paolo together as father and
son, it's an easy matter for her to foresee their future. "Prepare yourself
for suffering," she advises.

Truly, the emotions that strains a relationship in which there is total
dependency present a herculean challenge in which devotion for the care-giver
and trust for the dependent are the prime and basic necessities. Not only are
these traced well in this screenplay, but the actors convey it with candor
and to the point of pain. The size of a caregiver's sacrifice is expressed by
Rampling with bare honesty.

A study of a serious issue more than a simple entertainment, this is not the
stuff of commercial drama. It's arthouse fare for anyone whose thirst for
substance and meaning is slaked by such films as Lorenzo's Oil and The Sea
Inside. Those who find this kind of material weepy are advised to give it a
pass.

Director Gianni Amelio (don't get confused by the father character's name)
put this super-sensitive material together with co-writers Sandro Petraglia
and Stefano Rulli (Inspired by Giuseppe Pontiggia's novel "Born Twice.") It
was Italy's official selection for Best Foreign Language Film in the 2004
Academy Awards.